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By Karen Boehler
Pecos League writer
Anyone who’s familiar with the Continental Baseball League or Pecos League commissioner Andrew Dunn knows the story of the “CB” brand.
But even if you’re not, it’s a good story, especially since the CB will try to break what’s been an ongoing jinx when the Carlsbad Bats come back to the league in 2013.
“The story of the ‘CB’ has followed me everywhere I go,” Dunn said.
The story began in 2009, when Dunn was approached by Continental League founder Ron Baron and asked to put together a team three days before the season started after the Dallas Aviators had folded.
“He basically begged me to put (together) a travel team and help run and administer a travel team in the Continental League,” Dunn said.
Baron wanted to name the team the Texas Heat, but since Houston already had a team with that name, it wouldn’t work. So Dunn named the squad the Coastal Kingfish, after Coastal Baseball Park, which he owns, and the Kingfish, after the ECHL hockey team he’d worked for.
The CB logo (Coastal Baseball) was patterned after the Montreal Expo logo, with a wave in the lower case C and a baseball marking the hole in the B.
Unfortunately, the team didn’t do very well.
“In 2009, we had a horrible season and that’s when we set the standard for losing,” Dunn said.
Current Raton Oso — and former Alamogordo Pupfish — manager Keith Essary ran the team.
“Keith Essary was dealt an impossible hand,” Dunn said. “He had an unsalaried team with long road trips to Texarkana (Texas) and Alexandria (La.) and Alpine (Texas) and everywhere. Just no chances of winning games.”
There were some players who went on to bigger and better things — including current Pupfish player/manager Ernie Munoz — but the next year, Dunn was convinced to go to Las Cruces with the Vaqueros, and the Kingfish moved to El Paso as one of two travel teams (along with the Desert Valley Mountain Lions) in the Continental League.
“Basically that was a tough situation,” Dunn said.
By 2011, the Pecos League was born, and Dunn’s original idea was to put the Kingfish name, and CB logo, in Alamogordo. But when the Space City folks decided they like their local Pupfish name better, the CB again moved on, this time to Carlsbad, as the Carlsbad Bats.
“And it was a travel team and the one thing the CB can always do, is it can always lose,” Dunn said.
The 2011 Bats did live down to that reputation, getting only nine wins all season, but after not having a CB team in 2012, Carlsbad is back for the 2013 Pecos League season, and this time, Dunn said, the team will break that losing run.
“This year, the CB has advanced notice and the CB is back,” he said. “It’s given a lot of people a lot of opportunities to play and it’s going to be back in Carlsbad.”
The Bats will wear the same uniforms with the CB logo — with a bat added atop the C — and this year, Dunn said, the story will change.
“These guys are going to be very prideful and enjoy wearing the CB.”
And this time, bring a winning style and attitude to the CB.
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